Tuesday, December 23, 2008

I never really understood the use of longjohns when I lived in America. Although such things must have been pretty normal once-upon-a-time in the States, many a short-sleeved maniac can survive the ten minute intervals of exposure they might face in winter. Warmth is all around the average American consumer... whether at work, in their car, at home, sitting in Starbucks, or shopping at Wal-Mart.

Yes, the season where I wake from slumber to watch freezing clouds form above my mouth has come once again. These past few days have been particularly brutal, despite the fact that no snow has yet fallen. Ice covering the ponds at school is a bad sign of frigid things coming my way, however. And Nanjing is much colder than Chongqing ever was.

Longjohns, however, make a day spent in a cold workplace and then back to a cold apartment much more liveable. I can only imagine my wait for the bus without this essential gear and shudder. Normal jeans or khakis might as well be cobwebs when it comes to keeping that merry rapist, Jack Frost, away from the skin of your bare arse.

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Earlier this week I was asked to judge an English competition at the college where I teach. The role was not one of importance, so much as one of entertainment. Three out of about twenty teachers and school administrators, the English-speaking foreigner's opinion of the essays and songs (all in English) did not really count for much.

The first essay was by far the best and most interesting, both in terms of the imagery used and the creativity applied to an otherwise mundane topic, 'My Town, Today'. This boy had obviously memorized his essay, but never asked for a second opinion on his pronunciation. The words he spoke were unintelligible, but spoken with confidence nonetheless. Reading the copy of his essay (which we were given), he spoke of his small town in the Jiangsu countryside. As a boy, he and his brother would fish in a beautiful pond. A paradise. Now, however, chemical factories and other noisome aspects of development had arrived in his small town. "White [fish] maws gaped at the surface of the pond" which had turned putrid black in color. No one fished there anymore, and few boys even chose the area around the pond as a place to play. "Paradise Lost", the author claimed. He then produced a balanced view of the benefits of development (more jobs for the rather poor populace) versus his nostalgia for the green days of his youth, and his hope that China would no longer allow such ecological blight to mar its economic growth. He praised the Central Government for drawing attention to China's pollution problems. Perhaps he even meant that praise, although I'd imagine that having written the only vaguely negative essay of the whole bunch that we heard, some praise thrown--like a bone for a dog--to the government is probably de rigeur. Certainly it seems that the central government here in China is more concerned about these sorts of problems than local government is.

The event proceeded with myriad more essays about people's hometowns: sunny, relentlessly positive accounts detailing (sometimes in too much clinical detail) the triumphs of various local industries, and peppered with various common slogans. A bit boring for us judges, really. To top it off, the only other essay subject allowed was related to '30 years of reform' as instigated by Deng Xiaoping. Now, I respect the man and what he accomplished; I respect that even the crackdown of 1989 was probably sanctioned by Deng Xiaoping out of a love for his country rather than a love of the CCP's monopoly on power. Mao, by comparison, was completely motivated by self-interest. But I'm not confident that these students really even understand what Deng Xiaoping accomplished. Perhaps they're just not allowed to go into more interesting comment on the process by which an aggressively communist county became hyper-actively capitalist. But even if they could, would they be capable of it? Critical thinking is actively discouraged in Chinese schools, one would not be surprised to learn, to the point of total atrophy.

Over the evening, we heard a lot of those same vague slogans such as 'Socialism with Chinese Characteristics' that allowed Deng Xiaoping to steer the country around some of the vehement 'Maoist' communist apparatchiks. Since the judges were allowed to ask one question after each essay was given, I was sorely tempted to ask the students to define 'Chinese Characteristics'. I had pity, however. These young apostles of Mammon, the children of relatively well-to-do Chinese families, have been cloistered from reality since childhood: spoiled by their parents and grandparents like 'little emperors', entranced by the fake virtual worlds presented in computer games and TV, and relegated to spending most of their time studying for ubiquitous tests. Furthermore, students here have never been exposed to uncensored explanations of modern Chinese history, such that they've lost all interest in history because it is all presented in such a false, cardboard fashion. So could we determine what did interest these students, by the content of their essays? Yes.

Money; consumption; pride in the return of their country to a powerful place on the world stage. These are the prime interests of China's youth, at least as far as I could determine that night. Some even supposed that China has become a 'world power' in 2008. I think this may be a bit presumptuous, but the title is probably only waiting another twenty years or so. In any case, few of them were willing to let any cynicism into their appraisal of the world they inhabit (at least at this event). I asked two of the readers: "Having explained the many ways in which your hometown had improved over your lifetime, could you tell us about any problems you see there which still need to be fixed?" Their response, in both cases, was more than cautious. If one listened to these students, the worst problems China faces is that people in crowded buses seldom move aside to let pregnant women and the elderly have a seat. Hmm.

Just off the top of my head, I can think of one very simple problem far greater than the one named above, but less controversial than the ones often named in Western expose stories about China. When I asked my students in an exam what their favorite hobby was, most of them answered, "Sleeping".

Yes, 'sleeping' is one of the most popular hobbies among China's youth. My god, a more boring answer to that question could probably not be devised! Are these the people who will be important cogs in a vast, dynamic, and increasingly important country? When given the freedom of a little time, time with which an infinite array of activities or thoughts could fill, their best response is to lower their eyelids and depart once again from reality!

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

This morning in the entrance of the tunnel that passes beneath Xuanwu Lake, the tunnel the bus takes from my apartment to the college where I work, the bus came to a sudden halt. I peered, like my Chinese colleagues, out the window to see.

In the entrance to the tunnel lay a small, white dog. His fur was blindingly white like newly fallen snow. It looked soft like cotton bursting from its pod. A halo of crimson gore spread out around its head and neck. The back legs and tail still struggled frantically for life, but somehow I doubt it has much chance. So much blood and guts could not be anything but fatal, I think.

I wonder, sometimes, about the idea of progress. Societal progress, economic progress, political progress, scientific progress, etc. Is there really such a thing as progress? We have an idea that humanity has undergone a long road up. Stone begets bronze, bronze begets iron, iron begets steel. Stronger, more flexible substances are born from our ancestors. Our genes, we feel, are much the same. Survival of the fittest... without regard for the fact that often the most sadistic, inhuman of humans are the ones who successfully conceive the most children. In exempla: most of us living today contain the royal blood of hundreds of various dynasties ranging throughout the epochs of human existence. This is because royals most commonly used their 'noblesse oblige' to rape and pollinate their serving wenches, and really anyone else they wished to. And what characteristics allowed such people their positions? A demonstrated capability for ruthlessness. Thus, we bear within ourselves a rather un-progressive genetic trait for selfish, cruel striving.

Economic progress is equally deceiving. What is the basis for increased money supply to fill the hordes of the wealthy and the pittances of the wage-earners? The basis must be the energy supplies (mostly mineral), construction supplies (mostly mineral), and food supplies (again, derived from the forbearance of the earth. Even many supplies of water (used in industry, and not just the creation of various commercial beverages) are 'fossil' reserves that cannot be replenished within hundreds or even thousands of years. So where is our economic progress? In reality, any growth is only a growth in our ability to siphon off a vast bank account prepared eons before any of our species walked the earth. Unless some sci-fi miracle occurs--capability to fabricate any kind of matter or energy from any other kind of matter or energy--I don't really see 'growth'. I just see a hastening to the endgame.

I don't point this out to be pessimistic or negative. I just think that people should admit whose hide their pay check or stock investments is coming out of. In the end, our species will have to find ways of either bending matter and energy completely to our will, or harvesting additional bank accounts (planets, star systems) in order to keep this system going. Will we become spontaneous creators, or gradual destroyers? I have no idea. The seeds of both possible mutations are contained in contemporary society.

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

I was surfing through IMDB just now and an oddly mis-worded advertisement caught my eye. "Mysterious Tibet Dalai". With a Chinese web address, no less! I was immediately suspicious. The only people in the world who refer to the Dalai Lama disrespectfully simply as 'Dalai' are his PRC Chinese critics. Is the Chinese government now so desperate to sway world opinion on this issue that they're taking out propaganda advertisements on popular Western websites? Perhaps hounding President Sarkozy of France over this issue didn't have the effect they were looking for?

Yep. A quick look over the website linked by the short advert reveals a hybrid attempt at (pragmatic) luring more tourists to Tibet and (less pragmatic) propagandizing on the Chinese government's 'official line' on Tibet and the Dalai Lama, and various other issues (Tibetan Antelope) geared to put a good spin on China's occupation of Tibet. Perhaps they don't realize that this would be considered in very bad taste (discussing tourism and politics in the same breath) among the very audience they want to cultivate here for both purposes of pilfering fat tourist wallets and inseminate with imperial Chinese ideology. Ugh. Makes me feel dirty even spending a few minutes on such a website.